DESCRIPTION: Rapid progress has been made over the past several years in understanding the molecular mechanisms of signaling by intracellular calcium i diverse cell types. Recent technical and conceptual advances have revealed tha stimulus-evoked Ca2+ signals are often confined to highly localized domains in the cell, with important implications for both the generation and functional consequences of these signals. An international symposium on "Local Calcium Signaling in Cell Physiology" will be held September 9-11, 1998, at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to disseminate the latest advances in this field. This meeting, which is the 52nd Annual Symposium of th Society of General Physiologists, will focus on the mechanisms by which localized calcium signals are generated within cells, and on the diverse consequences of these signals for cell function. The meeting will follow a highly successful format used in the past for SGP Symposia. The latest research findings related to the meeting topic will be presented in four forums. 1) Lectures by 19 leaders in the field will cover aspects of local Ca2+ signaling in diverse systems including both excitable cells (neurons, muscle, neuroendocrine cells) as well as non-excitable cells (exocrine cells, lymphocytes, oocytes). The talks will be arranged in five sessions of roughly three hours each and will cover elementary Ca2+ events in skeletal and cardiac muscle, control of ion channels by local Ca2+, exocytosis Ca2+ domains and postsynaptic signaling, and the influence of local Ca2+ on IP receptors and organellar function. 2) Two poster presentations will encourage active participation by all attendees and promote informal discussion of recen results among speakers and attendees. 3) Six short talks will be devoted to late-breaking results and will be given by younger investigators, with topics to be selected from the abstracts submitted for poster sessions as well as fro the scientific community at large. 4) The conference will end with a keynote lecture by Dr. Edwin Neher, a renowned pioneer and leader in the field of loca Ca2+ signaling and its functional roles in cell physiology. The goal of this unique and timely meeting is to bring together a diverse grou of researchers to discuss and compare the latest findings in the rapidly evolving field of local Ca2+ signaling. Attendance at the meeting, which will be widely publicized, is expected to be 150-250 scientists, including graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, and independent investigators interested in a broad range of signaling mechanisms and physiological systems. Because of it interdisciplinary scope, it is anticipated that the conference will not only educate the attendees with respect to the current state of knowledge, but will also play an important role in identifying new directions for future research in this field.